We’ve come a long way, baby!
Every evening, I head to the back bedroom between 8:00 and 8:30 to write my posts. This is because…The Big Bang reruns are over for the night, and Mr. FixIt is ready to watch some detective drama. Not my cup of tea. This works for us. I’m always finished writing around 10:30 or 11:00 and I chat with my son-in-law’s mom for forty-five minutes or so to catch up with what’s going on in Colorado. By the time we are wrapping it up for the night, Mr. FixIt heads to bed and we watch some funny video or another for a little while, leaving the day on a note of laughter.
I noticed last night, when I settled in to write, there was a notification along the top of the lock screen on my iPad that said, “Open Pages – based on your location in your home”. I’m not surprised by this. Electronic devices are designed to make our lives easier. My iPhone tells me where I parked. I get in my truck and, based on the precise location by GPS, my phone turns to “Driving Focus”. Text notifications are interrupted and an automated reply is sent to the person texting, telling them that I am driving and using “Do Not Disturb. Send a repeat text if it’s an emergency.”
Still…this is all so “Jetsons” to this Baby Boomer. Remember Dick Tracy’s wrist watch that he communicated through? We’re here now. I remember when I bought our first home computer when Daughter #1 was in…what? Eighth or ninth grade? Hubby #2 thought it was absolutely ridiculous and extravagant…kids were never going to need home computers! When the salesman was showing me how to use it, he commented that someday, women would carry computers a thousand times more powerful that this…in their handbags. Get…out! How could that be?
The very first flip phone had more computer capabilities than the Lunar Landing Module. Think about that for a second. While we still don’t have personal jet packs, they’re building cars that drive autonomously. I’m a forward thinker. I love innovation and all things geeky. But I don’t know about driving with no hands. It’s one thing on a bicycle. It’s something else on an interstate with a ton of steel and plastic hurtling down the highway on its own.
There are really good things that come with innovation. When I was a Diabetes Educator, self blood glucose monitoring was a new thing. I was invited to participate on an Advisory Board for LifeScan…later bought out by Johnson & Johnson…to design the next generation meter. It’s been fun to see those innovations we suggested in the mid-‘80s come to fruition along the way. But one idea eluded scientists for a long time. The sensor that you stick to your skin and it reads your blood sugar in real time…anytime, day or night…without sticking your finger. When I saw that on a commercial in the last year or so, I beamed. We thought of that…and, there it is!
Electronic banking, automatic bill pay, instant messaging, Zoom meetings, FaceTime, online shopping…all things that have made the “Pandemic Era” more tolerable. Innovations arrive at what seems like lightning speed now. Online gambling…not so good. Cryptocurrency? Holy cats…how do they “mine” money out of thin air? How can it be worth something if you can’t touch it? Those of us who lived through the bursting of the internet bubble and the real estate collapse may have a little bit of trouble trusting such things.
That’s the thing, isn’t it? We have SO much information thrown at us in a constant stream of data, our brains can’t keep up. It affects every part of life…not just technology. Things we actually saw and heard…with our own eyes and ears…just one year ago are now being denied by the people who did the things and said the stuff. It’s almost as if…there isn’t an electronic record…video and audio recordings of them actually SAYING and DOING it. We aren’t stupid people. We are often…misled. It’s kind of like a magician’s trick. The hand is quicker than the eye. And, any time we get too close to figuring out the trick…there’s a diversion. They’re banking on us forgetting. Or being so overwhelmed, we just don’t care anymore.
It’s easy to be lulled into complacency when new innovations and new information and new technology is presented. I don’t think we can afford to close our eyes and ears and bury our heads in the sand. I come from the generation to whom the directive…Question Authority…was our buzzword. “Critical Thinking 101” should be added to the buzzwords of the 21st Century. I try to use my faith as a measuring stick and look critically at those who deliver information and compare them to the ways of Jesus instead of just accepting what the world is telling me.
In the meantime, my iPad knows when it’s time to write. Now…when it starts bringing me tea and cookies, I’ll be happy.
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“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
Romans 12:1-2 MSG